Category Archives: dad

Today, November 14th, is my birthday. I’m moved, overwhelmed, and touched by all the birthday love I’ve received from friends and family.

And here are two things that happened to mark this day in 2017:

The dream I had night before last, where my sister appeared as a surprise visitor–here to spend my birthday with me, she told me, even though she’s been gone for two and a half years.

And today, going through a random box of cards and letters from my 50th year, I found this typed letter, dated November 14, 1991– my 40th birthday, which took place the year of the fire. It’s signed “Mom and Dad,” but typically, Dad was the family communicator.

The letter reads:

“Our Dear Risa and Bruce:

We know how difficult life has been since October 21 and we know how hard you have been working to put your lives back in order. We thought that you might appreciate some of Al Martinez’s thoughts. [Al Martinez was a magnificent writer who started his career with Richmond and Oakland newspapers, and then wrote for The Los Angeles Times for many years. He was also a generous and gracious man.]

He lives in Topanga [Canyon] and has experienced some horrendous firestorms in his beloved San Fernando Valley. Recently…we ran across a copy of his collected essays, Ashes in the Rain.

In explaining the title of his book, Martinez writes, ‘We are an entertaining if not always rational species and our follies cry out for comment. We celebrate fools and suffer genius to mockery. We build statues of glory to battles that kill us. We drink poison to create profit and blacken the air we breathe with chemicals to enhance lifestyles.

But, still, there is redemption in chaos, and even as we smother ourselves with toxins that blind our vision, voices rise that cause temperance, that urge atonement, that sing of life’s sweetness in growing crescendo around the arc of the Earth.

We don’t have to die in our fires, they tell us. Nature provided for its own regeneration. The story of resurrection is rooted in the springtime of rebirth.’

Looking over the destruction in the valley, he thought nothing would ever grow there again.

‘I had not reckoned with nature…what had once been fire’s devastation was now a celebration of nature: wildflowers of every hue and color pushing up through the damp ashes to glow in the storm light in affirmation of life…there is a wonder here even beyond beauty, a perfect natural mechanism to assure an abundance of life where the earth once seemed lifeless….’

Very uplifting prose by a guy who has been through a number of major personal disasters.

Before too long, you too will be singing of ‘life’s sweetness.’

All of our love,

Mom & Dad”

Thanks for the wise, and beautiful words, Mom and Dad. And Sooz: so glad you made sure to visit me on my birthday.

When my daughter was almost a year old and we lived in San Jose, I had the crazy idea to sew wool shirts for the men in my family: My dad, my father-in-law, my husband, and two brothers-in-law. Five wool shirts, with flat-fell seams, buttonholes, plaids to match, etc. Not sure what I was thinking,… Continue Reading

Here’s something you probably never imagined when your kids were little: There will come a time when you, the parent, are no longer the most important person in your child’s life. Over the years, so slowly you may not even notice, you will transition to a position of diminishing influence, and will lose the… Continue Reading

The Passover Seder is a highly ritualized family event, during which children must wait patiently to eat dinner until the last plague is listed, the last bite of horseradish is choked down, the last prayer is read, and the last song is sung. Depending on how hard core the leader of the Seder service might… Continue Reading

Many, many years ago, my dad and I took my kids to Sacramento to visit the train museum. The museum has pictures of trains, train parts, memorabilia about the construction of the railroads in California (boring to the kids, but cool for the adults), and a number of actual cars you could go in. One… Continue Reading

It’s prom season! Time to pull this piece out again and give it a twirl. I wandered into the makeup hub at Nordstrom a while back and the joint was jumping. As I strolled from counter to counter in search of the latest gravity-defying lotion, I noticed that the make-up artists were out… Continue Reading

It was destined to be one of those bad shopping days. Nothing fit, the colors were wrong, everything was too young, too old, too not-right. The racks in all the usual good luck places were out of magic. No marked-down sale items on hangers calling my name as I walked by. I remained unmoved by… Continue Reading

Tomorrow would have been my father’s 92nd birthday. He’s been gone ten years now. Sharing a laugh on Father’s Day My dad always told me that I was a writer. He said this with admiration, I think. He encouraged me to write and would often help me when I got stuck. When I was taking an… Continue Reading